Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Pantry Overload!

I love love love having a pantry! It's great but I am not using my space very well at all. My budget is $0 so it's time to scour the house and see what I can find to fix my disorganization. I have a hard time finding things which means putting things away is also difficult.


I took down the unused chore chart. One big over sized chart for two kids didn't work. Magnets ended up everywhere and I had to store them out of reach for DS2 which means DS6 doesn't use it and has barely earned any allowance all summer long.

I printed some labels for the shelves and since I don't have a laminater I placed them in snack size baggies and clipped them to the shelves. Baking supplies on top, boxes on the second shelf, cans on the third and pasta on the bottom shelf. I placed the paper towels and napkins in an unused clear tote.

 I used packaging tape to attach labels to the baskets. Chips on top so the ideally don't get squished by DS2 then two snacks baskets easy to reach and easy to see when we need more.
I also took the recycling out. Amazing how that makes such a difference.


So an afternoon well spent and one more less messy place in the house.


Have a great day,
Nina

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Messy Messy Kitchen!

My kitchen is.....


a huge mess! The center island is full of junk and the counters are uber cluttered! I don't let the kids cook with me because the mess will just get bigger and something might get ruined. Which means I 


a: feel guilty for not teaching them skills they will need.
b: get angry and crabby about what I can and/or can't do.

So where to start? Guess we start at the back door and go clockwise around the room. That way I take tiny steps and don't just shuffle things around. Which will lead to a full garbage can, a happy mommy, a happy husband and most importantly a decluttered kitchen.

Here's the before.....









And my After....






So not too shabby for an afternoon. I emptied the garbage twice and it looks like I should take it out again. Yay go me! It looks much better now what to do tomorrow?

Monday, August 29, 2011

Taming kids art supplies

Markers, crayons, paints and colored pencils were stored in various plastic zip-lock baggies at first glance not a bad way to keep tabs on them. However I managed to have multiple bags for the same thing and was considering buying more supplies because I wasn't sure we had enough. Well, I was wrong so I checked my closet for something to use and this is what I found....



an unused makeup bag just collecting dust in my closet



It's now a great place to keep the boys art supplies